Swansong for the Grimsby and Cleethorpes trolley buses

The trams reached this far, but the trolleys went a stage or two further right down to the Boating Lake at Cleethorpes. Here a Number 11 service Karrier slides down from High Cliff en route, in a bleak 1940s autumn. (Image: Grimsby Telegraph)

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It wasn’t until they’d gone and their trappings removed that we all realised what initial expense was needed for their support.

The first trolleys were six-wheelers. But after the war the utility seated trolley appeared, the seats no more than slatted benches reminiscent of the old trams. Upholstery was late in arrival. They ran the old, familiar routes, the back and forth trip down Freeman Street and Hainton Avenue, and the big one from the Old Market Place to the Bathing Pool.

There were no others.

And that, of course, spelt their eventual undoing.

A trolley bus at Riby Square. This is the No 10 to Weelsby Road. (Image: Grimsby Telegraph)

For those old thoroughfares were very like the original transport routes of the horse tram. And they were out of date in a rapidly expanding town.

Post war, large areas of bomb-damaged Grimsby were cleared. And other areas once predominantly residential became entirely industrial. Grimsby and Cleethorpes grew and grew, devouring countryside.

It was the age of the Estate. And estates meant people and people required transport.

It was the same everywhere. Thus it was, in common with transport authorities the length and breadth of the country, that the age of the petrol bus reached fruition.

In June 1960, the last trolley bus left Cleethorpes Bathing Pool for its silent journey to the Victoria Street depot.